


Leaving

by podsandpuppies



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Single Parent Petunia, canon-typical abuse mostly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 15:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15222149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/podsandpuppies/pseuds/podsandpuppies
Summary: Petunia Dursley fears that her son will become a wizard and this fosters doubt about her husband's (and eventually her own) treatment of Harry.





	Leaving

**Author's Note:**

> CW for physical and emotional abuse. Vernon's nastiness is highlighted more than in the books and he's a bit more violent at one point. Also, while Petunia justifies her own actions and sees them as not that bad, I tried to write it in such a way that what she's doing still isn't okay. Whether or not I got that point across is up to you, the reader.

Petunia Dursley was listening to her husband’s grunting snores on the night of her son’s third birthday when she had a terrifying thought. It had been niggling at her all day, ever since Harry had quite suddenly turned a violent plum color when Vernon had smacked the boy for asking for a slice of cake, and Petunia had rushed him to the toilets to try to scrub it off. (It hadn’t worked of course, and the boy just turned burgundy instead.) That was when a vague sense of dread filled her. It only grew more intense when they had locked the boy in the cupboard under the stairs as punishment for his antics. She hadn’t been able to put a name to that dread until now, when she lay in the quiet solitude of her bed after her husband had fallen asleep.  
  
What if Dudley turned out like Harry? What if he was like her sister? What if he was a wizard?  
  
He wasn’t showing any signs like Harry was. However, her nephew had spent the first year of his life around magic. What’s more, her sister had only made strange things happen when she was upset or angry, and her brat of a kid seemed to be the same. But Dudley was a happy child, if a willful one. She realized as she thought about it that this part of her that feared her son would have magic had always been there, and that was perhaps why she hardly ever told the boy no. If he had a tantrum and exploded the television, she didn’t know what she would do. Worse, she didn’t know what Vernon would do. She couldn’t bear the thought of him laying a hand on her sweet, precious child.   
  
But it would all be fine as long as Dudley never showed signs of magic, wouldn’t it?

***

It was as though a switch had been flipped. Every time Vernon shouted at the boy, or grabbed him roughly by the arm, or spanked him, she couldn’t help but imagine Dudley in his place. She couldn’t unsee it. She wondered if the cruelty had always been there. Certainly, she’d married him because he was so unlike her sister and the world she lived in. And of course, her parents had disapproved. But that was because she could never live up to anything Lily did, wasn’t it? Of course her husband wouldn’t be as good as James, who had ensured her sister would remain in the world of magic even after school was done. Of course Vernon wouldn’t live up to James in the eyes of her parents, because he wasn’t magic. Right?

She wished she could ask, but her family was long dead. Maybe it was just their bias toward magic. But maybe they had seen something else in Vernon. She loved her husband dearly and didn’t want to think ill of him, but now that fear had rooted itself in her heart and her mind she couldn’t deny the peculiar sense of satisfaction in his eyes when doling out punishments to Harry. 

Petunia couldn’t simply leave, either, not even for a weekend to think. She didn’t have any place to go or any money of her own, and the neighbors would surely talk. She didn’t want to leave, either. She loved Vernon. She loved their home. She loved not having to concern herself with making money. She loved being a mom to her 3-year-old son. And yet, that’s why she knew that if Dudley did turn out to be a wizard, she wouldn’t have a choice. Her son’s well-being mattered far more than what the neighbors might think. 

So she made plans in secret.  _Just in case._ Just in case Dudley showed signs of magic. Just in case Vernon crossed a line. Just in case she had to leave at a moment’s notice with two boys and a suitcase. She rented a PO box. She opened a bank account in her own name at a different bank. She began saving money in little ways: she clipped coupons and deposited the extra in her bank account, she waited an additional week between hair appointments, she began patching Dudley’s clothes when they tore in hidden places instead of buying him new ones and giving the worn out ones to Harry. She learned more about money and budgeting by joining her church’s treasury committee. She learned about all the local motels and drove by them to determine which ones looked acceptable and which were seedy. She planned and made preparations, just in case. 

She hoped she would never need them.

***

For four years, everything was fine. When the boys entered primary school, she persuaded her husband to let her enroll in classes to become an accountant. It took some doing, but she managed to convince him that she only wanted to do it because she was bored and accountancy was a perfectly respectable way to occupy her time. What’s more, the extra money would never be necessary for basic needs but might let them have the extravagant vacations they always dreamed of. Eventually, he agreed. 

Unfortunately, attempts to quash Harry’s magic during this time were going poorly. Perhaps it was her own fault for stepping in to give lighter punishments than Vernon would give, but a part of her always doubted how effective any of it would be anyway. She was finding it harder to muster up the old anger at her sister anymore, though she still resented her brother-in-law. It was a shame that the boy had to look so much like him. She hoped that if the child had to be like his parents, he would turn out to be like Lily and not the man who had taken her away and gotten her killed. 

Harry’s resistance to the attempts to stop magic made Vernon’s punishments seem increasingly cruel. When he locked the boy in the cupboard for a week with no food for accidentally levitating in a shop, she began to wonder if what they were doing was right. If punishing him wasn’t doing anything, shouldn’t they try something else, some other way to get rid of the magic? Petunia ignored the boy’s soft footsteps when he broke out of the cupboard at night to get food and she broached the subject with her husband. 

“Stop!” he exclaimed. “And do what? No, we clearly haven’t been hitting him hard enough!”

What Petunia saw over the coming weeks frightened her. Whenever Petunia caught the boy doing magic or misbehaving, she gave him chores. When Vernon caught him, he smacked or spanked him, not as he usually did, but with a heavy walking stick. The boy screamed in pain whenever he was struck. Even Dudley left the room, shocked and frightened. 

“Mummy,” he asked her. “Why is daddy so angry at Harry?”

Petunia pursed her lips and didn’t answer, but in that moment, looking into her son’s fearful eyes, she knew it was over. It was time to leave. 

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr in Noveber 2017. I have vague ideas about how this will continue and will probably eventually add chapters, but it's gonna be a slow process.


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